A small, unknown community of people in Ecuador demonstrated this to be true – this group of people had a genetic condition that switched off the human growth hormone receptors. This hormone has the function of regulating the body’s metabolism and is in charge of the way that cells change as they age.

As a result it was found that this group of people had low to nonexistent instances of diabetes and cancer, suggesting the link between the growth hormone and instances of these diseases.

This study reinforces what has been observed before – that slow growing things tend to live longer lives. Certain kinds of yeast, certain kinds of rodents and even flies, were seen to have longer life spans when they grew slower instead of faster.

The study, published in the Science Translational Medicine journal, therefore seems to suggest that taking the human growth hormone to live longer or healthier lives may actually be counterproductive.